5.  The applicants were both born in 1977. The first applicant lives in Ružomberok while the second applicant lives in Prievidza.
6.  At 11.10 p.m. on 21 February 2005 the applicants were arrested (zadržaný) by the police and subsequently charged with assaulting a public official (Article 155 § 1 (a) of the Criminal Code (Law no. 140/1961 Coll., as applicable at the relevant time) – “the CC”) and with breaching the peace (Article 202 § 1 of the CC).
It was suspected that, earlier that evening, the applicants had caused damage to goods in a hypermarket, had behaved in an offensive manner in public and had insulted, punched and grabbed by the uniform a policeman who had been called to the scene.
7.  On 17 May 2005 the applicants were charged with a further count of assaulting a public official (Article 156 § 1 (b) of the CC) and with criminal damage (Article 251 § 1 of the CC).
It was alleged that, while being escorted to the police station after the incident of 21 February 2005 and while at the police station, they had made death threats against the above-mentioned policeman and another police officer, and that they had damaged their handcuffs, a bench, a wall and a radiator in their cell.
8.  On 21 July 2005 the Prievidza District Public Prosecutor's Office (Okresná prokuratúra) indicted the applicants to stand trial on the above‑mentioned charges before the Prievidza District Court (Okresný súd).
9.  On 18 January 2006 the District Court found the applicants guilty as charged and sentenced each of them to two years' imprisonment. The judgment was upheld on appeal by the Trenčín Regional Court (Krajský súd) on 4 May 2006. It thereby became final and binding.
10.  On 18 September 2006 the second applicant was released from prison on parole. The first applicant was released on 21 February 2007 after having served his sentence.
11.  After the arrest at 11.10 p.m. on 21 February 2005, the applicants were taken to the police station and placed in a cell.
12.  At 2.21 p.m. on 23 February 2005, the District Public Prosecutor's Office lodged a request with the District Court for the applicants to be placed in detention pending trial. The request relied, inter alia, on a video-recording by the hypermarket's camera system.
13.  On 23 February 2005 both applicants were examined by a single judge of the District Court in connection with the prosecutor's request. The second applicant was brought before him at approximately 5.15 p.m.. The first applicant was brought before him at approximately 6 p.m.
Assisted by a lawyer of their choosing, who then represented both applicants throughout the proceedings, the applicants denied the charges and argued that there was no admissible evidence against them because all existing witness statements had been taken by officers of the local police force, who had been directly involved in the incident. Those officers were therefore biased by definition.
Moreover, the applicants contended that they had not been brought before a judge within twenty-four hours of their arrest, as required by Article 8 of the Charter of Basic Rights and Freedoms (Constitutional Law no. 23/1991 Coll.) (Listina základných práv a slobôd – “the Charter”).
The applicants asked to be released; they offered a pledge, under Article 73 § 1 (b) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Law no. 141/1961 Coll., as applicable at the relevant time – “the CCP”), that they would live in accordance with the law and, in the alternative, applied for bail, under Article 73a of the CCP.
14.  At approximately 7 p.m. on 23 February 2005 the District Court gave an order (uznesenie) for the detention of the applicants, rejecting their pledge and refusing bail.
15.  The District Court observed that the suspicion against the applicants was based on the statements of three witnesses and that nothing had been submitted by them or their lawyer that could refute the charges against them.
The District Court held that the admissibility of the evidence would be established in the further course of the proceedings.
16.  The District Court observed that the first applicant had already stood trial and faced charges in two other similar sets of proceedings.
The second applicant had five previous convictions, including for violent offences. In addition, he had stood trial and faced charges in two other similar sets of proceedings also for violent offences. As the second applicant had himself accepted, in the incident of 21 February 2005 he had been intoxicated and “might have eaten some groceries” at the hypermarket.
The District Court concluded that the applicants had a tendency to commit violent offences of the same nature. This prompted fears that, if released, they might complete a previously attempted offence, continue to offend, or undertake new criminal activities within the meaning of Article 67 § 1 (c) of the CCP.
It was therefore necessary to keep the applicants detained and, accordingly, neither their pledge nor bail application was acceptable.
17.  As to the applicants' objection concerning the alleged failure to bring them before a judge within the applicable time-limit, the District Court observed that the applicants had been arrested at 11.10 p.m. on 21 February 2005 and that the application for the detention order had been lodged with the court at 2.21 p.m. on 23 February 2005. The time‑limit applicable under the CCP was forty-eight hours and had been observed.
The District Court held, specifically, that “it [was] not up to a judge of an ordinary court, whose task it [was] to decide on detention, to examine compliance of the provisions of the [CCP] with a constitutional law or an international treaty”. The written version of the decision was served on the applicants' lawyer on 2 March 2005.
18.  When the decision was pronounced on 23 February 2005, the applicants orally lodged an interlocutory appeal (sťažnosť) against it. On 28 February 2005 they submitted their grounds of appeal in writing.
The applicants relied on Article 5 of the Convention and reiterated that, under Article 8 of the Charter, their detention was unlawful on the ground that after their arrest they had not been brought before a judge within twenty‑four hours. It was true that the time-limit for bringing an arrested person before a judge under Article 17 § 3 of the Constitution (Constitutional Law no. 460/1992 Coll.), as amended with effect from 1 July 2001 (Constitutional Law no. 90/2001 Coll.), and under Articles 76 § 4 and 77 § 1 of the CCP, as amended with effect from 1 August 2001 (Law no. 253/2001 Coll.) was forty-eight hours.
However, neither the Constitution nor any other legislation had expressly repealed the Charter and an implicit repeal was not permissible. The Charter guaranteed them broader legal protection and had to be applied in their case.
The applicants again challenged the evidence and requested release or, in the alternative, bail, and offered a pledge under Article 73 § 1 (b) of the CCP.
19.  On 16 March 2005 the Regional Court, sitting in private (neverejné zasadnutie), dismissed the applicants' appeal. It noted that the time‑limit for bringing the applicants before a judge under the Constitution and the CCP had been observed and that the victim and witnesses had given their statements after duly receiving instructions concerning their procedural rights and duties. The Regional Court held that it was not up to courts in pre-trial proceedings to deal with questions concerning the impartiality of investigating authorities, and observed that “in the recent period, the applicants ha[d] been accused of having intentionally committed several criminal offences, while neither their previous prosecution nor the bill of indictment of 20 April 2004 ha[d] had the required effect on them”. The decision was served on the applicants and their lawyer on 31 March 2005.
20.  On 18 May 2005 the applicants lodged a complaint under Article 127 of the Constitution with the Constitutional Court (Ústavný súd). The complaint was amended on 23 May 2005.
Besides the above-mentioned complaints, the applicants contended that the decision of 16 March 2005 was arbitrary and not susceptible to review because of a lack of relevant reasoning and that the proceedings in respect of their appeal against the decision of 23 February 2005 had lasted too long.
The applicants relied on Article 5 §§ 1 (c), 3 and 4 of the Convention and on their constitutional counterparts.
21.  On 5 October 2005 the Constitutional Court, sitting in private, declared the complaint inadmissible, essentially for being manifestly ill‑founded.
As to the time-limit for bringing the applicants before a judge after their arrest, the Constitutional Court endorsed the position which it had taken in previous decisions (on 9 June and 8 September 2004 in cases nos. I. ÚS 100/04 and I. ÚS 141/04, respectively), to the effect that, by virtue of Article 152 §§ 1 and 4 of the Constitution, the Constitution took precedence over legislation (including constitutional laws) which was in effect at the time of the entry into force of the Constitution. Furthermore, the forty‑eight‑hour time-limit under the Constitution also took precedence over the twenty-four-hour time-limit under the Charter in accordance with the maxim lex posterior derogat legi priori.
As to the admissibility of evidence in support of the case against the applicants, the solidity of which was a prerequisite for their detention, the Constitutional Court held, somewhat inconsistently, that it was a matter to be examined by the ordinary courts and that it was not the task of the ordinary courts dealing with detention to examine the lawfulness and constitutionality of the criminal proceedings as such.
Lastly, the Constitutional Court found that the reasons given in the decisions of 23 February and 16 March 2005 were adequate and sufficient and that, although not optimal, the length of the proceedings in respect of the applicants' appeal against their detention was acceptable, the time between submitting their appeal orally (23 February 2005) and in writing (28 February 2005) being attributable to the applicants.
The decision of the Constitutional Court was served on the applicants on 10 January 2007.
22.  During a hearing before the District Court on 21 September 2005, the applicants again requested release or, in the alternative, bail and offered a pledge under Article 73 § 1 (b) of the CCP. The District Court dismissed the request immediately, in response to which the applicants orally lodged an interlocutory appeal and indicated that they would submit the reasons for the appeal in writing once the written version of the decision had been served on their lawyer.
23.  The written version of the decision of 21 September 2005 was served on the applicants on 30 September 2005. “Having regard to the evidence examined hitherto” the District Court was of the opinion that “the reasons for the applicants' detention persisted”. In particular “in view of the applicants' character, their previous conduct and the fact that they had been convicted of a similar criminal offence by the District Court, which conviction was [at that time] pending before the Regional Court on appeal”, the District Court observed that, when shopping, the applicants regularly behaved in the manner of which they stood accused.
The applicants had a tendency to behave, and would continue behaving, this way despite a prosecution in court which had brought about no change in their behaviour. Therefore, the applicants' request for release on bail and their pledge were not acceptable, and those two proposals could not be regarded as more than a mere formality.
Without offering any details, the District Court declared that, “when dealing with the applicants' request, [it] had examined the applicants' remand in custody and the conduct of the prosecuting authorities for compliance with the applicants' fundamental rights and freedoms under the Constitution and international treaties, and that [it] had established no such facts [on the basis of which it could accept the complaint]”.
24.  On 10 October 2005 the applicants submitted written grounds in support of their appeal of 21 September 2005. They referred to the arguments in their appeal against the decision of 23 February 2005 and reiterated that their detention had been unlawful ab initio because the time-limit for bringing them before a judge after their arrest had not been observed. They also submitted that their pledge and bail requests were by no means a mere formality because they were ready to pledge specifically not to behave in the manner for which they had been indicted and, furthermore, the amount that they were offering in bail was substantial.
Relying on the principle of the presumption of innocence, the applicants also submitted that the previous conviction that the District Court had been referring to had been quashed on appeal by the Regional Court on 13 September 2005.
25.  On 16 November 2005 the Regional Court, sitting in private, dismissed the appeal. In a two-page decision, after referring to the impugned decision, the Regional Court considered that it was only necessary to add that, although the applicants' previous conviction had been quashed, the existing evidence indicated that they were in fact guilty of assaulting a police officer in a manner similar to the present case. The applicants' detention was justified on the grounds of protecting the public from persons who, having been suspected of committing criminal offences, might commit other such offences. Therefore, neither the bail application nor the applicants' pledge could be accepted. The decision was served on the applicants and their lawyer on 2 and 5 December 2005 respectively. The latter of these dates fell on a Monday.
26.  On 6 February 2006, which was also a Monday, the applicants lodged a complaint with the Constitutional Court under Article 127 of the Constitution. They argued that, as a matter of principle, detention was not to be used as a sanction or a rehabilitative tool. Keeping them in detention was not necessary or proportionate. The purpose of their detention could be served by other measures, such as acceptance of their pledge or bail. The decisions of 21 September and 16 November 2005 were arbitrary and not susceptible of review for lack of reasons. Finally, the time that the District Court and the Regional Court had taken to rule on their request for release of 21 September 2005 had been excessive.
27.  By two separate decisions taken on 7 July and 23 August 2006 the Constitutional Court declared the complaint inadmissible in so far as it concerned the first applicant and the second applicant, respectively.
In both decisions the Constitutional Court observed that a complaint under Article 127 of the Constitution was subject to a two‑month time‑limit.
The Constitutional Court found that in the applicants' case the time‑limit had commenced with the service of the last of the impugned decisions on the applicants, that is to say, on 2 December 2005. As the complaint had not been lodged before 6 February 2006, it was out of time.
The Constitutional Court's decisions were served on the applicants on 4 and 12 October 2006, respectively.
28.  On 20 February 2006, following their appeal against his first‑instance conviction, the applicants again requested release.
29.  On 24 February 2006 the District Court dismissed the request finding, inter alia, that the reasons for keeping the applicants detained persisted.
30.  On 28 March 2006 the Regional Court dismissed the applicants' interlocutory appeal of 9 March 2006 against the decision of 24 February 2006. From the official Internet site of the Constitutional Court (http://www.concourt.sk) it appears that the applicants lodged a constitutional complaint against the decision of 28 March 2006 and that it was declared inadmissible as being manifestly ill-founded on 31 October 2006 and 21 March 2007 respectively.